Luis Mendoza Ramirez was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He migrated to the United States at the age of four and grew up in East Palo Alto, California. Growing up in the Bay Area, the home of the Silicon Valley, Luis learned to value technology and its potential to address social inequities within his community.
Luis graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a major in Computer Science that was completed through Harvey Mudd College. During his time at Claremont, Luis had the opportunity to take on numerous leadership and mentorship roles. He served as a mentor for first-year Latinx students, helping them navigate the complex challenges they face as students in a predominantly white institution. He was the founder and President of 5C Latinx in Tech, a professional development club that provided community and resources to students hoping to break into the field of technology, which historically has lacked adequate Latinx representation. Luis also served on the executive board of his college’s chapter of IDEAS (Improving Dreams, Equity, Access, and Success), where he helped provide resources to undocumented students and revived the annual 5K Dream Run, which helped raise thousands of dollars for mutual aid and scholarships.
Having seen firsthand how communities are affected by inequitable access to healthcare and education, Luis is motivated to utilize AI and technology’s capabilities to address these pressing issues. In the long term, Luis hopes to use his entrepreneurial ambitions to identify creative solutions and develop technology for social good.
For the DreamSF Fellowship, Luis is placed at the Mission Language and Vocational School. Here, Luis has the opportunity to use his technical skills to impact the Latinx community in San Francisco. He works directly with the COO to develop and optimize organizational systems and works on data analytics projects to evaluate program performance.
In his free time, Luis loves to keep a good balance of indoor and outdoor activities, including: running, playing soccer, building Legos, watching movies (especially Sci-Fi), and reading books. He also likes to keep his skills sharp by working on small passion projects that involve both software and hardware components.
